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| The Bridegroom Comes (John 2:1-11, 1 Cor. 12:1-11) |
| Written by Pastor Fausel | |
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you … The Epiphany Season continues today with our appointed readings showing forth … or making evident … that Jesus, whose birth we just celebrated, is both true God … and true Man. But now the true festival days like Epiphany and the Baptism of Jesus are over … and the color in the sanctuary has changed from white to green, accordingly. Our Gospel reading for today from John presents us with the account of Jesus’ first miracle… His turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. And we may be so familiar with that account, that hearing it again may not interest us very much. But there is a whole lot going on in this account … just beneath the surface. First of all, consider this: When Jesus performed His miracles, there was usually someone, or there were some ones who directly benefited … or were directly affected by it. Like, just for instance … When Jesus fed the five thousand, who benefited? The people, obviously benefited physically … there was a critical need, and Jesus met it. When Jesus raised the widow of Nain’s son from the dead … or the little girl, who had expired in the house of Jairus, or when Lazarus was brought forth from the tomb… the beneficiaries of those miracles are pretty direct and obvious. There was a critical need, and Jesus met it When Jesus forgave the sins of a paralytic lowered through the roof …and then cured him so that he could take up his mat and walk home … We can see again God’s blessings directly applied to an obvious need of a single individual. We could go on … even with the miracle of all miracles … Jesus’ resurrection from the dead … the beneficiaries and their blessings are the subject of most of the New Testament. But here in Cana … at a wedding … the wine has run out. And John records that Jesus turns a whole lot of water into wine. You ever wonder why?… and especially, who really benefited from that miracle? Seriously. Was there a disease here that needed to be cured? Was there a demon that needed to be driven out? Was there sight to be restored, a withered limb strengthened? Was there a storm that needed to be silenced? No, there’s just this party going on, and all the guest had already been as one of my brothers would say…”over served.” We learn from the wine steward that it was customary to switch to the inferior vintage when all the guests had already drunk freely … because no one could tell the difference any more. So there wasn’t a situation here that anyone needed to be freed from… Jesus didn’t need to bring about a miraculous cure … or save someone from something from which they couldn’t deliver themselves … we’d almost suspect instead of providing more wine He would have brewed some coffee.// So, it’s a reasonable question to ask. Why this miracle? Was it just to save the groom, in this case, some embarrassment? Or … just for Jesus … to show off? Let’s look at our text. It begins with the words, “On the third day … John is using those words as pointers …”Saying watch carefully, something big is going to happen!” As those words “on the third Day” were going to point to that greatest miracle… yet to come. Now, John relates here that Jesus and His mother and a few of His just-recently-called disciples were at the wedding when the wine ran out. And it’s Jesus’ mother, Mary, that brings this crisis of social good form to Jesus’ attention. His reply is respectful and yet distancing … “Woman (as he refers to his mother), what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother understands. And we notice that she tells the servants to obey her son, not her. There is a distance here, now, between her and her son which was not evident before. Now, there are those six stone jars. Large jars … about 100 liters each, roughly 20 gallons … a lot of water! It’s an indication of the size of the wedding … that much was required for the guests to complete their required ceremonial cleansing. Jesus tells the servants to fill those jars all the way to the top …Why? So there wouldn’t be any room for anything to be added to the water. And then a dipper full reveals that the contents of all six jars have been miraculously changed. The water is now a finest vintage wine. And there are six times 100 liters of it. So, why? What was the crucial necessity? Let’s just suppose something. Since in those days it was the groom’s responsibility to provide the wine … And as we now just saw Jesus do that … by extension, what would that make Jesus? …Someone could argue … he is acting as the bridegroom. Now… don’t get the idea that this is a notion to support some sort of a Dan Brown myth that Jesus is getting married to someone like Mary Magdalene … No … but it leads us in the direction of understanding that this miracle is about Jesus and not about the guests… It’s really not about the wedding going on in Cana of Galilee … it’s all about Jesus! … Jesus as the bridegroom … in order to take on His Bride, the church. We could say, there were actually two weddings going on in this account from John… What other evidence of that is there? Well, remember what happened with Jesus and His mother? His distancing words to her are not just coincidental … that’s why John recorded them for us. They signify the necessary break between Jesus and his worldly household, his mother and his family … and the beginning of His relationship with His bride, the church of all believers. As God said, “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.” You see, this is a true Epiphany!! Jesus is showing us who HE is … God, by performing this miracle … and He is showing His relationship to us … He is our bridegroom. And so, this is really the wedding of all weddings. So, then. We go back to that original question we asked. Who directly benefited from this Miracle at Cana in Galilee, this changing of the water into wine? The answer is … you and I are the beneficiaries! If all we see in this account is Jesus demonstrating His supernatural power by turning water into wine … well, we’ve acknowledged that a miracle took place … but we missed the most important part … its significance. This miracle is about you and me and all believers. First, it is an assurance to us that Jesus is who He claims to be … God in the flesh. The same God who designed the process whereby water, through grapes, becomes wine. Jesus is the one though whom all we see came into existence and through Whom all things are upheld and sustained. And Secondly … What Jesus did was a demonstration of His love for us. That He is truly our loving provider. Even when we are “over served.” In today’s world, the temptation is to see the Sun in the sky, not God, as the source of life, the provider of our daily bread. The Sun is the thing that makes things grow … the thing that causes rain water to eventually turn into wine. In fact, when it comes to our daily bread, we’re more likely to see ourselves as the key to that … it’s the sweat of our own brow that’s truly the provider of the clothing on our backs and the shoes on our feet. Where does God fit in? It feels good to sing praises to Him. We look to Him when we consider the hard questions of life and death … but from 6:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night … we see ourselves as the ones doing all the work … We tend to view God as watching us from a distance. And worse, as guilt and disappointments drag us down, we feel like God’s not caring or not involved. Often, those things make us want to go back to the old covenant … to take those stone jars and fill them with water … and use that water to wash ourselves …to try to make ourselves clean before God. But when God steps into our reality as He has in Jesus Christ … He changes that water of ritual cleansing … to the wine of the New Covenant, the wine which is a participation in the blood of Jesus … which INDEED cleanses us from all sin. So Jesus changes us, in an instant, from Judged and condemned under an eternal curse … to loved and free, and heirs of eternal life. And so then, in this event, this miracle, the Prophecy we heard read in the reading from Isaiah 62 has come true: “You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, and royal diadem in the hand of your God….. As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” He changes our name to His: “Christian” … and HE rejoices over us … Just as a groom rejoices over his bride. So that you would know for certain that the God of the Universe is so interested in you and your well-being … for this life and the life to come … is why Jesus changed the water into wine. It was a love letter … addressed to you. So that whatever life throws at you … you can be certain … you’ll never have to face it alone. And as the Bridegroom, Jesus has made a vow to love you forever … a vow He will never break. What peace is there in that? In Him. Amen. |